"What are you talkin' about, Paul?" said Long Jim. "People livin' here two or three hundred thousand years ago! Why, the world is only six thousand years old! The Bible says so!" "In the Biblical sense a year did not mean what a year does now, Jim. It may have been a thousand times as long. Men did live in caves several hundred thousand years ago. A book that Mr. Pennypacker has says so." "If the book says it, I reckon it's so," said Long Jim, with the borderer's sublime faith in the printed word. "The man of that time was a big, hairy fellow. He didn't have even bows and arrows. He fought with a stone club or ax of stone." "An' do you mean to tell me, Paul, that a man with jest a club could go out an' meet the arrers of the Injuns? Why, all uv them warriors kin shoot arrers pow'ful hard an' straight. What chance would the man with the club hev had?" "There were no Indians then, Jim." "No Injuns then!" exclaimed Long Jim indignantly. "Why the fust white man that ever come through these parts found the woods full uv 'em. I take a heap from you, Paul, 'cause you're an eddicated boy, but I can't swaller this." "I'll prove it to you some day," said Paul laughing, "but whether you believe me or not this place suits us." "How much venison have we got, Tom?" asked Henry. "'Nough in a pinch to last three days." "Now you fellers kin keep on talkin' ef you want to," said the shiftless one, "but ez fur me I'm a man o' sense, a lazy man who don't work when he don't hev to, an' I'm goin' to sleep." He spread his blanket on the stone floor, lay down and kept his word. "We might as well follow," said Henry. "Sol's a man of intelligence, and, as he says, when there's nothing to do, rest." "I ain't sleepy," said Tom Ross. "Guess there's no need uv a watch, but I'll keep it awhile, anyhow." He sat down on his blanket and leaned against the wall, near the mouth of the room. The others stretched out, even as Shif'less Sol had done, and breathing a sigh or two of satisfaction followed him into a land without dreams. Although Henry's sleep was dreamless, it did not last very long. He awoke in three or four hours. It was quite dark, but, as he lay on his back and gazed steadily, he was able to make out the figure of Silent Tom, crouched on his blanket beside the door, his rifle across his knees. Although saying nothing Henry had paid attention to what Paul had said about the ancient cave man, and now it was easy for his fancy to transform Ross into such a being. The rifle on his knees was his stone club, and he watched by the opening all through the night lest an enemy should come. For the present, at least, it was as much reality as fancy, because here was the cave, and here they were, guarding against a possible foe. "Tom," he called softly. Ross looked around. "What is it?" he asked. "I'm restless. I can't sleep any more, and, as I'm going to stay by the opening, you'd better persuade yourself to go to sleep."